"Knock, knock!"

Those words, punctuated by quick taps on Matt's car window, shook him out of a short, troubled nap. He sat up, and Seina's face was there to meet his upright. For the first time, he considered the gorgeousness of her face—and not just that, but the gentleness. It had all the geniality of her father's now-rugged visage, but there was also a rather subversive intelligence flying just beneath the radar.

She grinned a little. "Didn't mean to wake you, but Simone's ready to take you to the place. Where's your stuff at?"

Matt brushed his hair with his hands, feeling the cool sweat between his fingers, then leaned forward to open the door.

"It's been a really long time since I've seen a car," said Seina. "I like the shape, but it's kind of an ugly color."

"Yeah?" Matt said, half-listening. How long had he been asleep? It felt like only fifteen or twenty minutes.

"What kind of car is it?"

Matt shrugged. "I don't know, I never pay attention to that stuff. I inherited it from a dead grandparent."

"Aww."

"So, where is Simone, exactly?"

"In front of that same hut you talked to him at."

Matt opened the trunk. "Why isn't he here? Like, why didn't he come with you?"

"I don't know."

"He hates me, doesn't he?"

Seina laughed. "He hates a lot of things. I think he thinks there are monsters out where you came from."

"Hmm." Matt felt Seina come over to stand right next to him, looking with him down at the supplies in the trunk. "You have any clothes?" she asked.

"Besides mine? No."

Matt glanced over at her just long enough to drink in her figure. She—like everyone else in the village—wore loose fitting robe-like garments, covering most of her skin while leaving plenty of room to breathe. "Yeah, I saw you looking. The rest of my clothes are just like this. It's boring."

"Why don't you just go on the ferry," Matt asked, "and buy yourself some new stuff?"

"Are you kidding? With what money?"

A part of him really didn't care. Another part really wanted to see her in more tight-fitting clothes. He wiped some more sweat off of his forehead. "It's awful humid out here, for a desert."

"Really?" said Seina. "I think it's pretty mild. Anyway, I'm digging in."

Seina reached into the trunk and started to rummage messily through it.

"Wait! You're going to—"

"Hey, there's a lot of food in here," said Seina.

"Well, yes, I planned on being off for a long trip. The rest of the dragon balls are scattered all over the place."

"All over what place?"

"The world."

Seina froze in a slightly hunched over position, her hands still stuck in the pile of food and clothes in Matt's trunk. "The world?" She repeated.

"Yes. I need a lot of that food."

"Wouldn't you need more than that?"

"Yeah."

Seina straightened up and regarded Matt with an expression that startled him, because it was the first time he'd ever seen her wear it in the very short time he had known her. She was serious. "You're going to need a loooot more than that. There's no way you can give any of that up for the dragon ball and get to the other six."

"Okay…" Matt said. "Then I need to just take the dragon ball and run?"

"Yes."

The wind blew lightly through the trees, making cracks in Matt's stunned silence. Seina's expression was suddenly as cold and determined as he'd ever seen someone look. "Forget about Simone. Let me go with you, and we'll look for the dragon ball together."

"What?!"

Seina stepped closer. "I'll help you get the dragon ball, then you need to get the heck out of here, before my father and Simone figure out what you did."

"Why?! What do you want from me?"

"Nothing!" Seina shouted. "I'm the only one here who doesn't want anything from you! When my Dad saw you coming, the first thing he thought of was how much he could get from you, that's why he was being so nice to you when you talked! Matt, he just wants to rip you off!"

"I know that!"

Seina's mouth hung open to say something, but her eyes—which went from laser-focused to wandering everywhere but Matt's face in less than a second—made it all too clear she couldn't figure out what to say to him. She hadn't expected herself to be in this position at all.

"I know your old man wants to cheat me," Matt continued in a stern tone, "and I don't care. I want that dragon ball, and I'm willing to take the risk of losing a lot of food if it means I can get my hands on it. You have no idea at all what that ball means to me, and it isn't any of your goddamn business anyway!"

With that, Matt stomped toward the straw hut in the distance, brushing his arm against Seina's as he did so. She didn't turn to watch him leave, but instead looked sadly at the trunk full of food. Much of it was stuff she'd never seen before in her life. In this near-barren island, very few things could be grown, and the stuff that did grow was often strangely bitter. Eating, for her people, was no more enjoyable than the effort it took to grow it.

"You don't know how lucky you have it, Matt," she said out loud, turning finally to make sure he wasn't close enough to hear it.

"Okay," said Matt, "are you ready to go, Simone?"

"Obviously, I am," Simone sneered back. "I wouldn't have called you out here if I weren't. Do you have the radar with you?"

"Obviously, I do," Matt said. "I wouldn't have answered your call if I didn't. Do you have a shovel with you?"

"You don't?" was Simone's sharp reply. "What do I look like to you, a tool shed?"

Matt groaned and slapped his forehead. This time, he didn't have a pithy reply. This was something he should have been expecting to happen.

"Looks like you and I are going to be digging with our hands. Now, come on, let's go."

Matt and Simone were about halfway to the dragon ball, when it suddenly became obvious to Matt that Simone already knew where to go.

"What does this mean?" he thought to himself as they kept walking. When they first started, Matt was well ahead of Simone, but now they were right next to each other, and Simone seemed willing to keep on going on his own, leaving Matt behind with his unneeded radar. At first, he thought he may have just been paranoid. Simone was obviously just really good at following directions. One thing he was not good at, however, was hiding his complete lack of need for Matt's input. "Let's go" were the last two words said between them, where Matt normally would have expected him to ask any question like "how much longer" or "are you sure we're going the right way". Simone was not the kind of man who took a back seat for things like this, Matt knew that just from the two brief interactions they'd had. This man already knew where the ball was. It was the only thing that made any sense.

Ten feet away from the dragon ball, Simone pointed at a small, dark patch of dirt that was clearly made by a person. "Let me guess, Matt. The ball's right there?"

Matt stood where he was, nodding his head slowly, his mouth drying out because of a combination of heat and nerves. To emphasize his already obvious point, Simone walked over to the dirt patch and patted it with one of his bare feet. "Right here. This isn't too far from where I found it."

"Why have you been—"

"You need to get out of this place. Today."

Simone and Matt met eyes for the first time during the course of their trip. "I'm not leaving, Simone," Matt said. "If you had been talking to the version of myself I left in Gasket, he would have left here before you even needed to say it. But not me. I have to have your dragon ball."

"If you think you can take it away from me," said Simone, "then let's do it."

"What do you mean?" Matt asked, for no other reason than to make it official.

"I mean, bring it on, man. I mean, let's see you dig this dragon ball up before I break your ribs. I mean, you have only a few seconds to get that dragon ball out of the ground and run for your life with it before I have to tell the village chief you were eaten by a bear."

"There aren't any bears around here!" Matt protested.

"The chief doesn't care, he'll tell Seina that while I loot you for everything you have. Last warning, ghost face—get out of my village."

"Seina knows," said Matt. "She knows you were out here with me. She's the one who told me to get the dragon ball and run with it while I had—"

"SHUT UP!" screamed Simone. "That's a goddamn lie! You little—"

Simone rushed Matt, who was just barely able to side-step him. Simone catapulted face-first into the ground, barking out in pain when he felt the cartilage of his nose bend out of shape.

"Are you done?" Matt asked, unsure of what else to say. His heart was throbbing so hard, he could almost feel it pressing against his ribcage. Simone jumped up and turned to face Matt. His nose was jammed toward the left side of his face, and Matt had to bite the insides of his cheeks to stop from laughing.

"You are." Simone said before taking off his robe, leaving him in nothing more than a pair of slightly oversized boxer shorts. "You let it come to this, now let's go. I'm putting you right next to that dragon ball, under the ground."

Matt raised his hands defensively. "I'm not fighting you."

"I'm fighting you," replied Simone. This time, he inched carefully toward Matt, making quick but deliberate movements. His fists were raised in front of his own face like a boxer would do. Matt shook his head and backed away just as slowly as Simone came forward, leaving a gap between them Matt thought might be big enough to give him the edge if he decided to run. But he knew he wouldn't run. He might not fight back, he might let whatever happens happen, but he wouldn't run. This was all he cared about, this dragon ball, and he wasn't going to be shaken from his goal by some young kid.

When Matt's eyes suddenly drifted in the direction of where the dragon ball was buried, that was all Simone needed. He was in Matt's face in a flash, his fist soared through the air and caught the side of the older man's jaw with a haymaker. Matt felt himself become airborne for just a split second, then a crashing feeling on his back threw him into a daze. All he could see was the blue sky and a couple of clouds that were fuzzier than usual. There wasn't any pain—he just felt a tremendous pressure all around his head, like he had gained weight around it in a very short moment. There was a lurching moan coming from somewhere far away, and he couldn't pinpoint it.

"Get up!" Simone yelled before delivering a sharp kick to Matt's ribs. When the moan broke into a girlish yelp, he realized the noise was coming from him all along, and tears began to congregate beneath his eyes. "You crying?! I told you I'd do it, didn't I?! Get up, now?!"

Another girlish cry came from far away, and Matt wondered if it was him again or not. The clouds were no longer so fuzzy, and with every beat of his heart he felt more and more pain on his jaw and his chest. The cry sounded again, and got closer. "Seina! Get out of here, this guy just tried to steal our dragon ball!"

"He didn't!" Seina countered. "I watched the whole thing! Well, our engagement is over, Simone! You hear me?! OVER! I don't care if father wants to exile me from this village, I am never going to marry you…"

Her voice was getting quieter, but not of her doing. Matt entered unconsciousness as soon as he understood he was fading.

"Are you awake?"

Matt took his time to consider the question, his brain fighting through the pain in his head. "Y-Yes."

The room was lit with a lone candle, and Matt could see that the walls were straw. "You're in my house, Matt."

"Your house?"

"You could say it's more of a hut, I suppose. You probably once lived in a house, I never have. I know it's not much to look at, that's why I stay out of it as much as I can. Do you need water?"

He did, but he wasn't ready for her to leave just yet. "Where's Simone? What happened to him?"

"Well, he's taken a pretty good scolding from father for the stunt he pulled near the shore," Seina explained. "But, to tell you the truth, I'm in it even worse."

Seina couldn't tell if Matt's expression was confusion or pain, so to be safe, she tried to elaborate further. "Father wants me to marry Simone, so when I told him I was refusing, he was furious. It was lucky for me I had you to show him as evidence what Simone did, or I would have been kicked out on the spot."

"Why would…" Matt paused to let the throbbing in his jaw subside. "…your father make you marry that guy?"

"Simone's the son of a very well-respected family, and so I'm to marry him. It was a choice between he and another boy, his name was… hmm… oh! Stoma, that's what it was!"

"Does everyone in the village have a name that starts with 's'?" asked Matt. Seina would have taken it as a joke, but Matt's was clearly dead serious, which made the question funnier. She giggled for a moment, then replied. "No. There's 'Chief,' who you already met. Then there's—"

"It's fine, it's fine…" Matt said. A line of saliva was escaping down the swollen half of his jaw, and when he tried to wipe it away, there was a horrible sting across that entire side of his head. "God!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Matt," Seina groaned, seeming to feel his pain as well. "I got there as fast as I saw Simone attack. I can't believe he had the nerve to start a fight with you, over me of all things!"

"It wasn't just you…"

Seina blinked. "What, then?"

"The ball," Matt said. "He's protecting the ball, he buried it himself. I don't know why. Maybe he thinks he can sell it and make a bunch of money or something…"

"The bastard!" Seina snapped, and covered her mouth with her hand, turning to look out the window for anyone who might have heard. "The bastard," she repeated quietly. "How could he hide something like that from us?"

Matt had no answer. He wished he did. Simone attacked before Matt could even begin to think of what Simone would want with the dragon ball. Did he… know? If he did, why didn't anyone else?

"My father's going to be here in a few minutes," Seina said in a low voice. "I need you to pretend to still be out of it. If he thinks you're unconscious, he'll let me take care of you overnight. You can leave early tomorrow morning, get the ball, and go. Fast."

They waited, and after what felt like an hour or two through Matt's floaty, strained experience of time, the silhouette of Chief's dark figure filtered in through the front door. Matt shut his eyes.

"How is he?" asked Chief.

"How is Simone?" asked Seina.

"He's been admonished, don't you worry. Now what about Matt?"

"Matt's been asleep," she said after a little hesitation. "I think he'll be okay tomorrow."

"You'll have to keep him overnight?"

"Yes."

Matt could feel Chief's irritation through the cold silence. Seina's voice had to break it. "I wouldn't try to wake him up, father, he—"

"I need the keys to his vehicle."

It took every inch of Matt's concentration to stop his eyes from shooting open. He wondered, with a stomach full of hot ice, if he had just given himself away, had reacted in some nebulous way that Chief noticed. Matt continued to concentrate as he felt a hand pawing around near his right pocket.

"Stop it!" came Seina's voice. The hand withdrew. "Why are you taking Matt's keys?"

"Seina, be quiet!" was Chief's harshly-whispered reply. "We need to get his supplies, or else we'll have to start sending more people off the island. We've already lost twenty people this past year!"

"We aren't thieves, Daddy!"

"Seina! We don't have a choice! Now, I'm sorry for how this happened, and I told Simone he was in danger of being sent away—"

"Simone knew about the dragon ball!"

A pause. "What, now?"

"Simone beat up Matt because Simone knew where the dragon ball was—he found it, and buried it. He didn't want to let Matt take it, so he attacked him. Father, you should—"

"I'm going to give that boy the lashing of his life for hiding that ball from us!" Chief yelled, startling Matt into flinching. He could hear, beneath the shouting, Seina's voice trying to shush him. "We're in poverty, and he's walking around like a king, with you draped around his shoulder! I gave him everything he could ask for, and more, and this is how he repays me?!"

This time, the pause was so long, Matt assumed the Chief left until he heard Seina speak up. "Father," she said quietly, "do you still expect me to marry him?"

"Of course I do!" he bit back. "How could you even ask that?! Simone's going to get his lashes, but I'm not breaking your engagement off this far down the line! Besides, when he brings me that dragon ball, we can get such a high price for it on the mainland, we'll never have to worry about poverty again. To be truthful, I'm quite happy to see how things have turned out."

"I won't," said Seina. "I won't marry him. I can't. I-I—"

"Yes, you will," said Chief in a simple tone. "You'll do as I say. You're tired, it's been a long day, you don't need to be up all night looking after him. Just let me have his keys."

"You don't need his supplies anymore, if you're already taking his dragon ball—"

"His dragon ball? HIS dragon ball?! What gives him the right to it?! Because he has some fancy little gadget to find it?! I'll stamp on it here and now—"

Once again, he felt a hand, then two hands, pawing each of his pockets. Underneath Matt's lips, his teeth were gritting against each other with such terrible force, he felt suddenly like his teeth were no longer made of calcium, but of rubber, and at any moment they would bend out of their sockets and start to bleed.

When he heard the sob at first, he thought it came from him, and a sweat formed near the top of his head. The rustling sounds and the feeling of being pawed on went quiet, and he heard the sound again.

"Seina, stop."

"No!" Seina said through another sob. "You stop!"

"Stop crying, please. I—Look, I'm not touching him anymore. Is that what you want?"

Seina didn't say anything, but he could still hear her sniffling. Matt wondered how Chief could be falling for her obvious fake-crying. Especially because it sounds like something she's done all the time to get her way.

"Seina, listen," said Chief, "I am under a lot of pressure to do what's best for all of us. I need you to understand—this isn't going to be a common thing. When we get that ball, the sky's the limit. I swear it to you, honey, the sky's the limit."

"I never want to see you this way, daddy!" Seina erupted. "With your hands all over some passed-out man, trying to steal because you're desperate! Well, we're all desperate! But we can't—we can't do that, there are some things we just can't do!"

"You're tired," said Chief after what felt like years of quiet. "We'll talk more in the morning. I'll hold off for now, if that's what you really want."

The Chief left the hut. When Matt opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Seina's face hovering above his.

"We're leaving. Tomorrow morning. Sunrise."

She licked her finger and put the candle out before she left.